


Butterfly Effect

by WarlordMan162



Category: I Am Number Four (2011), The Lorien Legacies - All Media Types, The Lorien Legacies - Pittacus Lore
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alien Culture, Betrayal, Bookstores, Drama, Fanfiction, Fights, Gangsters, Gen, Half-Human, Hallucinations, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, India, Mentors, Modern Assassins, Murder-Suicide, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Science Fiction, Survival, Teleportation, The Author Regrets Everything
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-28 02:34:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8427889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarlordMan162/pseuds/WarlordMan162
Summary: What if when Number One was stabbed, she actually survived and managed to save herself from the Mogadorians?
What if One's DNA was all that the Mogs needed in order to initiate the memory extraction?
What if she still suffered from the effects from that indirect mind-altering event?
What if, after unintentionally causing the worst earthquake known to mankind, she was discovered by an old man in India, who'd train her to be a warrior?
"That's a lot of 'what-ifs', Adam, and nobody here would give a fuck," says One. "Now let's get this over with and kill each other."





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, everybody. Now I know this isn't TQO1. It's how I SHOULD HAVE WRITTEN IT TWO YEARS AGO! But, if I wrote it like this, then the great OCs I've gotten wouldn't have ever existed. Anyway, I hope all of you enjoy this. This first chapter is pretty intense. Okay, hell, all of these chapters are gonna have some intense sheiße. So if you're really squeamish or tend to get triggered by hardcore events, then I don't think this is the story for you. Sorry, but my writing's changed. Let's just say Blake Crouch and Stephen King have really changed me in these past few months on hiatus.

 

> _“_ **_I want her back. I want her back. No no no! Must pay, someone must pay, they must pay. Our combined fury rises. They will pay, yes they will pay, we will make them pay._ **
> 
> _And that’s when I feel it. Something ripping open inside of me, something so entirely new yet so strangely familiar that it’s almost funny I never noticed it before, that it took this crisis for me to notice it. The floors start to shake, a massive rumble coming from beneath my feet but also coming from inside me. And as my heart sings—_ **_yes, they will pay, they will pay_ ** _—everything goes black and—”_

I’m alive.

That much I know.

Tepid water laps across my legs. The mid-afternoon sun is warm against my skin. I hear the muffled calls of animals all around me. When I try to stand, my body aches in pain, forcing me back to the muddy riverbank. I don’t know how long I’ve been lying here, and I have no idea where I am. I manage to roll onto my side, to discover that I am surrounded by jungle. I’m wearing a sleek bodysuit, which is entirely blue aside from a silver band that slices diagonally down the front. Wrapped around my wrist is a bracelet that looks to have been twined with flowers. I try to remember how it got there, but my thoughts are interrupted by a sharp pain in my gut.

A thick, wet blanket of mud coats my side and some of my lower body. The river behind me is translucent, reflecting the pristine sky above. Next to me, bobbing up and down in the river, is a dark wooden box with a strange lock on it. The box is covered in strange symbols that I recognize, and can understand. The large marking on the top of the box reads _one,_ like the number. I don’t know what that means.

It isn’t until I start to pull the box from the river that I find the source of the pain: there’s a massive wound across my midsection! At first, I don’t do anything, I just stare at it, dumbfounded, trying to make sense of what’s happened to me. But then I start to remember what happened, or at least enough the help me understand.

The Mogadorians attacked. We fought them. _Hilde_ , my Keeper, fought them. She was—they Mogs, they—…I remember a glowing rock that we held together. I remember screaming. I remember the sound of Hilde’s chest being blown open by the concentrated energy of a Mogadorian rifle. There was an… earthquake, and then…

Holy shit. _I_ am Number One.

That box is meant for me, and only me, to open.

Unless my Keeper is still alive.

I don’t remember anything after that. And I don’t have time to mourn Hilde right now. All I can focus on is saving myself. Mustering what little strength I have, I crawl onto the riverbank with the box—it’s my Loric Chest, I remember that, too—and lie on my back, taking a momentary break. Once I catch my breath, I struggle to my feet, dragging the Chest along with me. I find a dry clearing nearby.

I collapse to my knees and drop the Chest in front of me. My hand instantly reaches for the lock. Without Hilde, I can open it by myself. A blinding golden light hits me like a wave when I flip the lid back. I wish I didn’t have to do this so unceremoniously, but I can’t worry about that right now. This wound is so bad it could kill me, and I’m already starting to get the tell-tale blurred vision and delirium of blood loss.

The first thing I reach for is the flat black healing stone. I hold it in my hands, unnerved by the ominous stark black of the material. A healing stone only heals ailments that are caused with the intent to harm or kill.

_Check_.

But the pain of healing is double the pain of the original injury, meaning that this blaster or sword wound I have is gonna make me feel like I’m being torn in half.

_…Oh, what the hell, check._

It needs to be used right away, and I don’t mean the next hour or the next day. I mean in the immediate time that you were hurt. I put my forearm into my mouth, to have something to bite down on from the pain, as I press the healing stone to my still leaking wound. Nothing happens.

_I’m fucked._

I drop the stone, leaning back against a log while I clutch my stomach with both hands, the blood seeping between my fingers. I start to drift in and out of consciousness, knowing that I’ll be dead soon.

_This is it. The first step in the mission of the Mogadorians has begun. Number One, check. On to Number Two._

I close my eyes, probably for the last time, and let myself drift away. As I reach to shut the lid of the Chest, to ensure it stays locked in my death, I accidentally knock a small, blunt object out of the box, dropping softly onto the grass as the box closes and the lock melts into place. I pick it up, holding it in front of my face as tears finally fight their way from my eyes.

Not only have I failed Hilde, I’ve failed my species. I’ve even failed the small mission of learning how my Inheritances work. The object in my hand is oblong, apparently having been carved from a dark stone. It’s covered randomly with strange carvings. On the top of it is a small slit with a slight red glow emanating from it. This thing must be some sort of important weapon or tool that will help me resurrect my planet, and I don’t even know what the fuck it’s for.

Squeezing the strange artifact, I press it against my forehead.

I scream in anger, in fear, in terror, willing myself to die.

Until the slit on the device goes insane.

It expands upward, a tendril of crackling crimson light.

I throw my hand away from me, startled by the sudden energy.

The ruddy light condenses and congregates into a focused, jagged blade. Its glow dies down until it has a similar visage as lava. What I’m holding looks like a machete made from molten rock.

_Molten rock._

I lift my hand from my wound and cautiously touch the blade, expecting to feel a boiling sensation on my fingertips, given the magma-like sheen.

No heat radiates from the weapon. It isn’t cold to the touch like steel, but the blade is only slightly warm, like a drink left sitting on a table for too long. However, the blade still has the same texture as metal. Hopefully it works the same way.

The clearing around me is dry enough for me to start a fire in. With my still bleeding torso, I crawl and find anything I can possibly burn. Mostly just kindling, dead branches and leaves. In all of the panic on the verge of death, I even cut my hair and braid it together, using the severed strands as a catalyst for the flames. I’ve probably lost enough blood that would have killed the average human. For better or worse, I’m anything but.

Once the flames get started, my body feels cold and uncomfortable. Lowering the blade to the fire and holding it there takes an extra amount of effort, even more difficult than trying to drag a car with telekinesis. The blade starts to glow brighter than the Prime Sun of Lorien. Watching it glow with heat, I drift off even more. My determination to save my own life has worn away now that I’m actually about to do it. Everything around feels a distant, out of body experience. I have to hurry.

With shaky hands I pick up the machete.

This time, I can feel the heat rolling like unsteady waves off the blade. It hovers above my wound, which has terrifyingly slowed its bleeding. I’m gently biting my forearm again, in case this actually works.

_Please, let this work!_

I press the blade to my wound.

It’s working!

And it’s agonizing!

My flesh melts and molds underneath the molten blade. I bite down on my arm harder as this happens, blood now seeping from my skin. Everywhere on my body feels like it’s burning, a thousand tiny embers being shot at me from all sides. But I keep my hold on the machete, hoping I didn’t damage it.

I can worry about that later. I keep holding on, until the pain of being burned stops feeling like hell, and more like the best sensation of my life. It’s too much to try and scream out in pain. I continue to cry. I start to laugh.

_First blessed, first to die,_ Hilde once said to another Keeper, back on the ship I think, when she thought I wasn’t listening.

Well, fuck that.

I made it through drowning unconscious in a river, I survived bleeding out for Lorien knows how long, so let’s make third time the charm.

I will live.

**Author's Note:**

> The end! Also, if you think that was bad enough, then the next chapter will really eff with your minds. It'll also eff with One's, after hears the symphony of angel's trumpets. By the way, these chapters will probably be periodic. Not because I have writer's block, like with TQO1, but because there's a chapter that needs to come out the day after Christmas. You'll understand when you keep reading. For now, just prepare for TQO1. It'll be really good. If I have time, I'll continue "Born of Ra," my spinoff series about Ivanick Shu-Ra. Like I said, I felt really bad after killing him off in the original TQO1.


End file.
